I think (probably along with Laura here) that we should see some stats before losing too much sleep over it. Anecdotal is not necessarily accurate, though there could be something there.
It takes me by surprise to know of Catholics (and I do know of one or two) who I think are pretty much YEC since that isn’t what their particular denomination gets from the Vatican.
If there were something to your suspicion, perhaps part of the drive is just to not be seen as going along with “the experts” or mainstream stuff. Conspiracy delusions are all the rage these days after all.
At first I was wary of what beaglelady says here because it is so similar to the irrationality I hear from atheists about religious people in general.
But look up the following on google…
“why I no longer believe in YEC”
“why I no longer believe in evolution”
The first yields many results with lots of testimonies. The second gives you nothing. Sure you get plenty of people defending YEC or evolution. But people changing their mind seem to be from YEC to evolution rather than visa versa. The only reason I see this as ongoing is because the YEC people are having more children to indoctrinate with their obstinate dogma.
And yes a google search does find this to be an intentional strategy…
Now, many are being revealed as conspiracy facts intentionally labeled theories. But the theory moniker still holds some weight, although diminishing as truths are being revealed.
I’m too jaded any more to trust how an author mis/quotes another author. I hate to feel this way. But the article you shared quoted DeYoung right (and I’m not surprised by that, since you shared it).
Below is the original blog post, which may even be worse than “your” article.
I currently attend the church De Young used to pastor. We’ve visited there for a few years on civic holidays, because they preach the Gospel there on those days, too, rather than the American Flag. We were diappointed, when he left. Now, not so much. It seems like he has gone off the deep end. (Or we just never really knew that much about him.)
I don’t know enough about what is going on in non-protestant churches, and maybe even most protestant churches. But I’ve seen enough “Christian fads” to shudder at the thought of more. The horrible damage that they do is lasting and spreads and morphs. You are right that these things damage the reputation of the church. We look more and more like used car salesmen.
Unfortunately, it may be that the majority of those no longer believing in YEC, also no longer believe in Christianity. But what can you expect when so many of these YEC churches have constantly been teaching that evolution is equivalent to atheism?
Oldest Kid is home for the weekend from college. We were just talking about this last evening. When those kids from our former church who are dutifully learning their fictitious taxonomy, and the canned “apologetic arguments” YECers use to “prove” the Bible, and the AIG Q&A books to ensure their salvation, figure out that the stuff they thought was holding up their faith (rather than the actual Holy Spirit) is a lie, then we can talk. Come on over. Let’s start looking at actual facts. Fight through it, work it out. These are not mutually exclusive, because Ken Ham says they are.
I’m confused as to why DeYoung is referring to this as “new” strategy to begin with. It’s not new at all… it’s exactly what many in the conservative Christian homeschool movement of the 80s and 90s were going for. It may have worked out well for some, but not so much for others.
True that is doesn’t work out for all. We have a few friends who filled their quiver, and the incidence of kids with unplanned pregnancies and bad marriages is uncomfortably high.
Yeah… I think in some cases general ignorance becomes a substitute for innocence. Even within families, there are no guarantees. I have several siblings who’ve gone on to Bible school and a couple married pastors, but have another who’s a “none” and simply avoids any religious discussion with family. And other families are similar. Not that families shouldn’t disciple – just that there’s no magic formula.
I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who was an adult and understood evolution and accepted it to suddenly decide it’s all wrong and became YEC. I’ve heard stories of it by YECist who claimed they use to believe in evolution. I can’t disprove it other than they typically can’t explain it very well so I presume they never really knew it.
I saw a few posts recently that stated in college many young adults raised in YEC abandon their faith but a portion of them ended up deconstructing jt and accepting science and faith as evolutionary creationist a few years down the road.
There is also a snapback phenomenon particularly in religions with an authoritarian morality. I saw it happen with my best friend who was LDS. This is where a member of that religion begins to doubt and they throw out all moral standards along with their religion. But since there are often really good reasons for those moral standards, throwing them all out leads to considerable trouble and totally messing up their life. As a result, they decide their religion was right after all and they go back to it.
I suspect this is behind some of these stories of people claiming they were atheist or believed in evolution before deciding they were wrong and becoming Christian. It is not always the case since there are also examples like C. S. Lewis who were atheist and really did convert to Christianity. I am not quite such an example since I don’t claim I was ever an atheist. I was just raised in an extremely liberal family with ample criticisms of the Christian establishment, and becoming Christian I certainly never even considered rejecting anything in science.
